Welfare Reform Bill

There has been a suggestion that people with disabilities adjust to their condition. It is true, if you take the meaning of those words at face value, that people do adjust to their condition. For example, in one of the case studies shown in the paper produced by the Government yesterday, there is an account of a woman with epilepsy who did not meet the PIP qualification. It said that it was dangerous for her to use a cooker but she got round it because she used a microwave and therefore does not need to use a cooker. That may be a very practical suggestion—apparently when a cooker was needed her husband did the cooking on a proper cooker—but we have, in a way, failed to address what we mean by people with a range of disabilities coping or adjusting to their disability. Yes, there is an adjustment and yes, there are practical and psychological ways in which people cope with their disability, but it only requires something that is really unsettling to someone with a lifelong disability for those very important building blocks that have been put in place at the bottom to be disturbed or taken away and for the whole thing to disintegrate and come down like a house of cards. Therefore, while I can understand why reassessment is necessary in some cases, a judgment has to be made about identifying those for whom reassessment, with the associated costs that have been mentioned, will add to their stress. Stability, as I said earlier, is important in these cases. If their stability is unsettled, there are consequences. The Government must make some sort of judgment about this. They will not save money and it is compassionate to recognise the types of disabilities that will present themselves when there will clearly be no improvement and degeneration is more likely. Quite frankly, if in some cases people adjust to their disability, are they not to be applauded for having made that adjustment, not penalised for it?